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THE TRUTH ABOUT 

THE BOLL WEEVIL 




Compliment* of 

THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK 

GREENVILLE. MISSISSIPPI 



# 



THE TRUTH ABOUT 

THE BOLL WEEVIL 




Being some observations on cotton 
growing under Boll Weevil con- 
ditions in certain areas of Louis- 
iana, Texas and Mississippi. 

By 
ALFRED H. STONE and JULIAN H. FORT 

Dunleith, Mississippi. 



1910 



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COPYRIGHT 1911 

FIRST NATIONAL BANK 

OREENVILLE. MISSISSIPPI 



CCI.A2S0-101 



MORTM OUNUeiTH. 
SOUTH OUNLEITH 



ALFRED M. STONC 
JULIAN M. FO«T 



'ii/a4.t€im4^ 



OWNERS AND OPERATORS 



"^m^Adi, (g#^,. December 16, 1910, 



Mr. W. H. Negus, 

Prest. First Natl. Bank, 
Greenville, Miss. 
Dear Sir:- 

Recalling the request made of us that 
your bank be given an opportunity of making 
public a report of our recent investigations 
into agricultural conditions in certain weevil 
infested areas of Louisiana, Texas and Missis- 
sippi, we herewith enclose a statement of our 
observations and conclusions. If this report 
contains anything of value to our immediate 
territory we shall be glad to have the co- 
operation of the First National Bank in bring- 
ing it to the attention of all those whose 
interests identify them with the problem of 
growing cotton under boll weevil conditions. 

Very truly yours, 

(Signed) STONE & FORT 



PREFATORY NOTE 



The report which v/e are here permitted to present to the public 
does not demand a formal introduction. Nor is it necessary to say 
anything in behalf of its authors to those by whom they are kno\vn. 
For the benefit of those who may not be personally acquainted with 
them, we may say that in our judgment no such investigation as is 
herein reported has ever been undertaken by anyone more competent 
both to get at the truth and to state it. Messrs. Stone <^ Fort combine 
the practical experience of seventeen years of cotton planting on a large 
scale with a wide familiarity with general economic conditions in the 
cotton belt. To these qualifications they add a thorough knowledge of 
the government and state literature on the subject of the boll weevil. 
W^e offer this report of their investigations -with the confident belief that 
it will be found to contain much thorough and practical information that 
w^ill be of value to both planters and business men in the territory 
through which we shall distribute it. 

In our own behalf we may explain that our only purpose in bringing 
their report to public attention is to serve the business and agricultural 
interests of this section. It has been our belief that much of the 
financial distress which has overtaken communities on the appear- 
ance of the boll weevil might in our case be avoided by proper prepar- 
ation and conservative management. A knowledge of the experiences of 
other sections, of their failures and successes, is absolutely essential to 
the safeguarding of our own interests in the face of the approaching boll 
vi^eevil situation. Therefore, when w^e learned of the investigation con- 
templated by Messrs. Stone CBi Fort, it seemed to us that we could 
render a public service by securing permission to publish their obser- 
vations and conclusions. 

In submitting their report we bespeak for it the consideration which 
we think it deserves. 

THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK 
Greenville, Mississippi 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

Probably no other insect pest in the history of any of the Ameri- 
can staple crops has provoked the same amount of discussion as has 
the Mexican boll weevil since it crossed the Rio Grande river, about 
the year 1892. In 1909 Hunter estimated the infested area to be 
approximately 225,000 square miles, including portions of Texas, 
Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Since this estimate 
was made the weevil has completed its movement across southern 
Mississippi, and has invaded Alabama. When the extent of the af- 
fected territory is considered, it is apparent that it must necessarily 
embrace a very great variety of physical and economic conditions, 
which in turn may readily account for the confusing, contradictory 
and hence frequently misleading character of the discussions which 
have followed the path of the weevil across the cotton belt. There 
is no hard and fast rule for planting, cultivating and handling a crop 
which is grown from the Mexican border to the North Carolina up- 
lands, and from Southern Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. Neither 
is there any fixed standard for measuring the effect through such an 
area of the vicissitudes of climate or the damage from insect pests. 
Yet, in trying to summarize the impressions of three years' study of 
boll weevil literature the one thing which stands out most distinctly 
in our minds is an apparent attempt to apply to the whole cotton 
growing area the contradictory experiences of a variety of widely 
different localities. We are told that the boll weevil will work havoc 
throughout the entire cotton belt; that its advent means the end of 
staple cotton growing; that its spread will finally break up the plan- 
tation system of raising cotton on a large scale, and bring everything 
to the level of the small farm, with cotton as a "surplus crop." Yet 
none of these things can be established in advance of the fact of its 
actual accomplishment, and most of the predictions are still no more 
than predictions. 

THE BOLL WEEVIL A LOCAL PROBLEM. 

We, of course, realize that certain generalizations may be safely 
made of boll weevil habits and operations, and we appreciate the value 
of many of the scientific bulletins, dealing with the pest, issued by the 



National Department of Agriculture, and by various State depart- 
ments. But we are none the less of the conviction that, after all, the 
boll weevil presents a variety of local problems, differing: with local 
labor and economic conditions, and influenced by physical considera- 
tions of soil, rainfall, temperature, vegetation, drainage, etc., all pecul- 
iarly local in character. The only lessons of value to us, therefore, are 
such as may be drawn from the experiences of others in situations 
locally similar to ours. The success of a farmer on a Texan wind- 
swept prairie, working with wheel cultivators 50 acres of cotton to the 
man, offers us no legitimate ground of hope. It would be equally < 
as foolish to become discouraged because of the failure of a cotton 
planter in the semi-tropical cane belt parishes of Louisiana. 

In planning the investigation which we have just concluded, we 
were governed by the considerations which we have suggested. The 
problem which confronts the people of this county, and probably of 
the greater portion of the Delta as a whole, as it presents itself to us, 
is that of growing cotton profitably, notwithstanding the weevil, in 
what is known as an alluvial "swamp" country, as distinguished from 
a "hill" or "prairie" section, under the plantation system of labor and 
management, on a variety of soils ranging from stiff buckshot to sandy 
loam, with a rainfall average of 47 to 50 inches, with an average tem- 
perature of 64 degrees, at an altitude ranging around 126 feet above 
sea level, and between the 33d and 34th degrees of north latitude. 
In mapping our route we first studied the physical conditions of 
various boll weevil districts, and selected such as most nearly approx- 
imated those of the Delta. We then studied the effect of the weevil 
in these different areas, as far as disclosed in government crop reports, 
and as we could ascertain it through correspondence with planters, 
merchants and others. We selected also certain areas typical of 
physical and economic conditions entirely different from ours here, 
that we might be able to draw intelligent comparisons between the 
two, and more accurately measure the force of local conditions in the 
general boll weevil problem. The sections which we visited embraced 
portions of the "swamp" regions of Southern or South Central Louis- 



iana, along the Mississippi, Atchafalaya and lower Red rivers, alluvial 
parishes in northwestern Louisiana, along the Red river, the "swamp" 
sections of eastern Louisiana, along the Mississippi, timbered counties 
in North and East Texas, and the Natchez district, along the Missis- 
sippi and south of the Big Black, in this State, We visited only such 
sections as had had from three to eight years of experience with the 
boll weevil. We adhered uniformly to the plan of making immediate 
notes and memoranda of all observations, interviews and figures, and 
of writing up each night a journal of the day's impressions and con- 
clusions. In every instance, save one unimportant locality in Texas, 
we interviewed from three to eight persons. We endeavored to get 
at the truth of conditions at the time of the original appearance of the 
boll weevil, as well as at later dates, on down to the close of 1910. 
This involved an inquiry into such other factors, affecting the crop 
from year to year, as the panic created by the weevil's first appearance, 
rainfall, droughts, etc., labor conditions and individual policy and man- 
agement. We discussed conditions w^ith planters, managers, and 
negro tenants, merchants, cotton factors, bankers and insurance men, 
and with various individuals casually met in hotels and on trains. 
Our trip occupied fifteen days, and we covered 1,260 miles by rail and 
340 miles through various interior parts of the country by team and 
automobile. We endeavored to get at the root of every situation 
which we investigated, and accepted as final no off-hand conclusions or 
unsupported statements. The trip was not a junket on our part, but 
was a serious business proposition, undertaken solely for our own 
guidance in framing a policy for our planting operations when the long 
threatened boll weevil invasion shall have become a reality. 

THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS. 

To give a detailed account of every step of our journey and set 
down the observations made at every point, would make this report 
unnecessarily voluminous. We shall confine ourselves to certain typi- 
cal districts which offer opportunities for comparing and contrasting 
other situations and conditions with those here at home. We shall 
first discuss conditions furthest removed from ours, and then take up 
those having most in common with us. 



THE NATCHEZ DISTRICT. 

It may seem somewhat singular to follow this statement of our 
plan of treatment, with a consideration of the only section of our State 
which has been afflicted with the weevil for any length of time. In the 
order of our route of investigation, this territory was in fact the last 
we visited. But in the light of our observations we are satisfied that 
no other region which we studied exhibits a greater divergence from 
Delta conditions than the Southwest Mississippi riparian counties of 
which Adams is typical. This difference is due to a combination of 
both physical and economic causes. 

In the first place, there is a striking absence of any similarity of 
physical environment. Adams is a county of hills, gullies and ravines, 
with here and there a creek bottom broadened out into a few level 
acres. Occasionally we saw a farm of from 50 to 100 acres occupying 
what seemed to be an elevated plateau, but even here the land was 
seared and washed out of all semblance to an unbroken field. The soil 
has the reddish cast seemingly typical of all hill countries, with neither 
the richness nor texture of the same colored land in the Red river 
valley. It is worn and exhausted by well nigh a century of constant 
cultivation. A study of the vegetation gave constantly suggestive 
reminders of the semi-tropical region which we had visited in Louis- 
iana. Magnolias of magnificent proportions are scattered through 
the woods. Pines are everywhere in evidence, and Spanish moss is 
uncomfortably thrifty and abundant. 

In its economic aspects the differences between Adams county and 
the Delta are as strongly emphasized as in its physical. A very great 
proportion of the total arable land of the county is owned in the City 
of Natchez. From what we could learn we judged that practically all 
of it was furnished from that place. It was rented in small tracts, 
ranging from twenty to two hundred acres, to tenants, who depended 
upon local merchants for supplies. The land owner had nothing to do 
with either his land or his tenant, further than to collect his rent. 
There were thus three parties in interest, the landlord, the merchant 
and the tenant, with no co-operation between them. Such a thing as 



a plantation, as we understand the term and the organization here, 
does not exist in the county. In fact, we do not see how it could ever 
have existed, under the broken and disjointed soil conditions which 
characterized all the land we saw. The nearest approach even to the 
plantation system of furnishing, was where a merchant owned a lot 
of land and supplied his own tenants. Even in these cases, the land 
was usually in a number of detached tracts, without any element of 
cohesiveness among the scattered tenants. The appearance of the boll 
weevil created the same panic and demoralization which we had inves- 
tigated further West and South. But there was this radical difiference: 
Not only was there no organized effort to allay fright, quiet labor and 
instil confidence, but so far as we could learn, there was not one 
single planter or plantation to stand up and make a fight to demon- 
strate what might be done. Wherever we found the plantation sys- 
tem, with the single exception of the cane parishes of the Atchafalaya 
and Red rivers, we invariably found individual instances of planters 
of means or credit who, from the very first appearance of the weevil 
down to the present time, had made cotton and had been able success- 
fully to readjust their operations to the new conditions. These men 
created confidence in their neighbors, furnished object lessons of the 
folly of demoralization and marked out the way for the re-establish- 
ment of the business of cotton growing upon a sounder and more 
enduring basis than before. 

Instead of this, there was in the Natchez district situation appar- 
ently but a single end and purpose. This was the saving by the 
advancing merchant of as much as possible for himself, out of what 
seems to have been considered from the very beginning an inevitable 
and hopeless economic wreck. 

The merchant determined to realize what he could out of the 
meagre personal property which represented the only remaining asset 
of the negro tenant. The land owner, unaccustomed either to supply- 
ing his tenants or to handling his land himself, and wholly without 
confidence in the future, apparently made no effort to save the labor 
to the land by stepping in between his tenant and the advancing mer- 



chant. The merchant who combined landholding with an advancing 
business must necessarily have shared the general panic, just as his 
tenants shared the general demoralization of labor. It was at this 
juncture that the Delta planter appeared upon the scene, and added to 
the existing confusion by making possible an exodus for which the 
negro was already prepared, and which only needed financing to 
become an accomplished fact. We found no evidence that the planter 
from this section had ever stirred up the labor situation, or in any 
case persuaded a negro to leave. Nor do we see how any blame can 
be justly attached to his actions. The country roads leading into 
Natchez were filled with negroes, wagons and mules; the streets of 
the town were filled with puzzled negroes, upset, disturbed and be- 
wildered. They knew nothing except that their merchants would 
carry them no longer, that they could not carry themselves, and that 
they had been called upon to pay what they owed or surrender 
what they had mortgaged. Every available pen in the city was filled 
with horses and mules. The planter from the Delta needed the labor, 
and the latter was eager to go. The planter paid the merchant an 
agreed price for the negro's account, loaded him and his family and 
household plunder on a boat or car, and brought the entire outfit home. 
Hundreds of negroes and carloads of live stock and personal property 
were thtis removed from Adams and adjoining counties. Thousands 
of dollars of Delta money were put into circulation there in the process 
of exchange, but when the final account was closed, the net result to 
those counties was, on the one hand a group of fairly well satisfied 
city merchants, and on the other a disorganized country, stripped of 
labor, farming implements and stock, empty houses on tenantless land 
— a picture of desolation for a counterpart to which memory must 
return to the devastation of the Civil War. 

If any man imagines this description to be overdrawn, let him 
traverse that country and talk to its people to-day — even now after 
wasted fields have become a fixed feature of the landscape and the 
thought of dwindling crops a fixed habit of the mind. In 1906, Adams 
county grew 23,836 bales of cotton; 20.455 in 1907; 14,155 in 1908; 



i,70o in 1909; in 1910 conservative estinlates place the crop at less than 
900 bales. Under normal conditions there were 42 gins in operation. 
In 1909 there were sixteen. We are told that this year there were 
only eight. 

In face of the wreck which this recital tells, it is idle to speculate 
upon what might have been. It is almost as profitless as it would be 
ungracious even to attempt to apportion the blame for what is. We 
shall only say that whether the ruin of this historic region as a cotton 
country lies all at the door of the boll weevil, or is due to economic 
and physical conditions combined with ensuing panic — whatever the 
cause — the destruction is complete. Next to sympathy for a distressed 
and an harassed people, may come congratulations to ourselves that in 
not one single feature did their normal situation resemble ours. We 
have nothing to fear from their experience, in so far as natural condi- 
tions are concerned. In so far as their demoralization affected the 
result, we may consider their case with infinite profit. 

TEXAS. 

As the weevil was for a number of years confined to Texas, it 
was natural that the rest of the cotton belt should become accustomed 
to the idea of looking to that State for instruction in the effort to 
handle the situation created by the appearance of the pest elsewhere. 
But we have not much to learn from Texas, for the reason that there 
is no considerable weevil infested area in that State where we may 
find conditions to parallel our own. Economic conditions in some por- 
tions of the Brazos river region, the plantation districts, are somewhat 
analogous to ours, but we are 200 miles north of even such counties as 
Robertson, and 300 miles further east. We are too far apart for safe 
comparisons and conclusions, but we may remark in passing that the 
advantage of location is all with us. We may learn from Harrison 
county that cotton can be safely and profitably grown in a heavily 
wooded country, with a heavy rainfall, but Harrison is in no sense an 
alluvial county such as ours. 



One lesson we may learn, however, from any portion of Texas, 
and that is the senselessness of becoming panic stricken when the 
weevil appears. Even in the counties of Bowie, Pvcd River and Lamar, 
practically in our latitude, there was repeated the same story of 
demoralization which could be told of districts hundreds of miles 
further south. But in every instance there followed a readjustment 
and recuperation which merely emphasized the folly of the original 
panic. An analysis of the crops of any or all of these counties shows 
that they have at times suffered as much from the vicissitudes of 
weather, before the appearance of the weevil, as they have subse- 
quently from the weevil itself. In 1905, Red River county, with no 
weevils, made 9,498 bales. After the weevil appeared it made, in 1907, 
19,618 bales; in 1908, 17,766 bales; in 1909, 19,722 bales. And this 
with a greatly reduced acreage. In 1905, a year of excessive rains, 
Lamar county, with no weevils, made only 32,423 bales. With normal 
seasons, but with weevils all over the county, and a much reduced 
acreage, it made 43,224 bales in 1908 and 44,612 bales in 1909. Harri- 
son county is on the eastern border of Texas, and in about the same 
latitude as Warren in this State. 1906 was a banner cotton year in 
Harrison county, and 18,131 bales were raised. The boll weevil struck 
them in 1907 and the crop fell to 7,883 bales. The county was spotted 
with abandoned fields and a state of panic prevailed equal to that 
produced by a pestilence. With a return of sanity and a return to 
work, the county produced 17,394 bales in 1909. Thus wnth a thor- 
ough infestation of weevils and a reduced acreage, the crop of 1909 
was only 737 bales less than that of 1906. In 1905, with a wet year, 
but with a full acreage and no weevils, the crop was 11,155 bales, or 
6,239 bales less than in the weevil year of 1909. In Kaufman county 
the largest crop in six years, 60,608 bales, was made in 1908. Contrast 
this with the 29,004 bales made in 1905, a wet year, but with no 
weevils. 

We talked with a number of j)eop]c in Bowie, Red River, Lamar, 
Kaufman and Harrison counties. We foimd an entire absence of fear 
of the weevil, and. instead, a universal feeling of confidence and 



security. Both farming and mercantile operations are more con- 
servatively conducted than before the appearance of the pest. Real 
estate values are as high as before and are on a much sounder basis. 
But this is not a "swamp" country. Cotton is grown in the main 
under a "farming" instead of a "planting" system. And most of 
the labor we saw was white. We would, however, again emphasize 
the statement that in the history of the efTect of the weevil wherever 
it has appeared, we may learn one lesson of infinite value even from 
North and East Texas. This is that whether the country be prairie, 
alluvial or hill, disaster has followed panic, and prosperity has come 
with a return of sanity and such readjustment of farming and busi- 
ness methods as prudence and common sense have suggested. The 
bald, unanswerable fact is patent throughout the entire cotton belt 
of Texas— that cotton is still being grown, that prosperity is on the 
increase, and that the boll weevil has ceased to be a cause of alarm 
or even a topic of conversation. 

LOUISIANA. 

The parishes of Louisiana which we shall consider here arc 
Caddo and Madison and the group composed of Rapides, Avoyelles 
and Pointe Coupee. Shreveport, in Caddo, is on Red River, a little 
north of an east and w^est line through Vicksburg, and about 136 
miles west of the latter place. The portion of Caddo Parish which 
we visited was the territory adjacent to Shreveport, and occupying 
to it the same business relations as exist between Greenville and the 
outlying country. This is an alluvial region with a soil somewhat 
similar to much of ours, except for the reddish color of the river 
deposits of which it is formed. Shreveport has been for years the 
center of a banking, factorage and general business, based mainly 
uj)(>n cotton, and conducted similarly to ours in the Delta. The weevil 
struck this part of the parish in the summer of 1906, and created the 
usual panic and demoralization. Planters' credits werfe almost uni- 
versally curtailed, and some could not secure advances at all. Labor 
shared the invariable fate of such situations. The neerro either had 



his supplies cut off or suddenly reduced to a minimum meat and 
bread basis. His conduct was shaped by that of the white man upon 
whom he depended for his daily living. Where the planter became 
demoralized and was ready to give up without a struggle, the negro 
naturally either ran or worked in a half-hearted way. Where the 
planter and his factor or banker got together and agreed to see the 
thing through to a finish, there was little if any difficulty in instilling 
confidence into the negro and handling him so as to get satisfactory 
results. We found no instance here of failure to make a profitable 
crop where there existed co-operation between the planter, the factor 
and the labor, coupled with proper management. On the contrary, 
we found no case in which failure had not followed demoralization 
and disorganization. 

Caddo has furnished the classic example of the destructive ca- 
pacity of the weevil. Since 1908 we have heard a hundred times of 
a plantation which in 1907 produced 1,700 bales and the following 
year made only 210. We had not, however, heard of the adjacent 
place, which has made half a bale or more to the acre ever since the 
weevil came, and made it at a profit. The situation thus presented 
serves as a fair illustration of the numerous "mysteries" which follow 
in the wake of every visitation of the weevil. We were told on 
every hand of this man who failed where another succeeded ; of 
fields which made half or three-quarters of a bale, or even a bale, to 
the acre, while just across a ditch or a fence the weevil wrought 
absolute destruction. Ordinary common sense suggests that there 
must be some tangible reason for such occurrences, but it was often 
difficult to get at the real explanation. We may as well say here as 
elsewhere that it is our belief that no other insect since the dawn 
of history, not excepting the Egyptian locust, has had to bear the 
burden piled by human nature upon the boll weevil. When he once 
appears all other causes of crop failure are forgotten. It is not even 
remembered that there were any short crops before. We visited very 
few places where we were not assured with the utmost gravity that 
"before the weevil came we alwavs made a bale to the acre." The 



ravages of the an.iy worm are forgotten ; the boll worm is no longer 
mentioned ; blight is not taken into account ; boll rot is not thought 
of; shortages of labor and consequent overcropping of tenants are 
ignored; no attention is given the hundred and one things which 
always have been and always will be limiting factors in cotton produc- 
tion — but everything is charged to the weevil. We have talked to 
men whose land, equipment and general surroundings did not seem 
to us *^o justify more than half a bale under the most favorable condi- 
tions, and been told that while they got only 250 to 300 pounds of 
lint now, they "used to make from 400 to 500 every year." 

To return to the case in point. After two days of patient inquiry 
we stumbled upon the fact that the owner of this particular 1,700-bale 
place had repeatedly expressed the conviction that cotton could not 
be grown under boll weevil conditions; that he had made every effort 
to put his land into other crops; that he had put in 1,000 acres of 
alfalfa, and a lot of such truck as potatoes and peanuts; that after the 
weevil came he had treated his cotton practically as a side line; that 
he did not have sufficient labor to handle all his different efforts at 
diversification, and frequently took hands out of his cotton and put 
them into his other crops. His neighbor had put in some alfalfa and 
peanuts, but had stuck to cotton as his money crop and main reliance, 
and had made good at it. 

Driving out to a plantation from Shreveport one day in an auto- 
mobile, with the owner of the place, we passed several wagons loaded 
with household plunder. It was a negro family from the very planta- 
tion to which we were going. Our friend told us that he had paid 
this darkey a boll weevil balance this year of a little over $800, but he 
had decided to "move" — because he did not like another negro in an 
adjoining house. This planter had seven other tenants to whom h^ 
had paid balances ranging from $350 to $500. His place contained 
1,000 acres, and before the weevil came he had planted 800 acres 
of cotton and had a ten-year average of 500 bales. Since the weevil 
appeared he had reduced his cotton to 600 acres and had averaged 
about half a bale. His yield this year was 234 pounds p€r acre, but 



on further inquiry we found that he had ''diversified" in 1909 by- 
planting- 130 acres in sorghum — -with results to the 1910 cotton crop on 
this land which can be appreciated by every planter who has ever 
followed sorghum with cotton. This reduced his plantation average 
heavily. We also found that on some cuts he had gathered this 
year from 400 to 500 pounds of lint per acre. 

We were told by the head of one of the largest factorage and 
wholesale grocery houses in Shreveport that he was now selling at 
prices ranging from $45 to $60 per acre land which his house could 
hardly more than give away the first year after the weevil appeared. 
And this land is being sold solely for cotton growing — not for trucking 
or diversifying. This gentleman assured us that his business was on a 
much more satisfactory basis than formerly, and that the boll weevil 
had been very far from an unmixed evil in his parish. The planter to 
whom we just have referred intends to return to practically an all- 
cotton basis next year — planting only his feedstuff. He is plowing 
up one-third of an 150-acre alfalfa field for cotton. Since the weevil 
struck him he has built a new cotton house at his gin, 84x26 feet, and 
he is preparing to increase its capacity by half. He could not find a 
purchaser for his plantation of 1,000 acres at any price in 1907. He 
this year refused a cash offer of $50,000 for it. And yet we are told by 
the owner of property side by side with his, and not differing from it 
in any particular whatever, that cotton could not be grown under 
boll weevil conditions. The planter of whom we speak owns an auto- 
mobile and does not seem to lead a particularly strenuous life — but 
his home is on his property, and that is where he lives. The other 
gentleman resides in the city of Shreveport. 

We looked into conditions in Webster parish, merely to compare 
a Louisiana "farming" proposition with "planting" operations. We 
saw no negro labor in the portion of Webster which we visited. They 
were all white farmers, owning from 40 acres to 250. They could 
not run when the weevil struck their section in 1906 and 1907, and 
apparently had no desire to do so. We found here another illustration 
of the necessity of going below the surface to get at the truth of a 



boll weevil situation. We ran across an old farmer who owned 
some 260 acres of land and had three sons farming near his place. 
He told us that the boll weevil was an awful pest; that he used to 
make a bale to the acre every year, on hill land, with fertilizer, 
but now he couldn't count on more than a half. While we were talk- 
ing to the old gentleman, a neighbor came up and made some remark 
about a fine crop he had heard of the old man's son having made 
this year. He admitted that his boy Bill had gotten eight big ties 
from eleven acres. We pressed him for some explanation of the 
difference between his son's yield and his own — he having claimed 
that his had been cut by the weevil this year to about a third of a 
bale. He hesitated a moment, then said: "Well, the truth is that 
Bill stuck to his crop from start to finish, and as for me and the 
other boys, I reckon we done just a little too damn much saw- 

millin'." 

There is as much change of scenery, vegetation and general 
physical condition to be witnessed in following the valley of the 
Red River down from Shreveport to Alexandria as there is along 
the Mississippi from Cairo to the Gulf. The territory above Shreve- 
port was before the Civil War one of the greatest cotton countries 
in the world, that to the south and southeast of Alexandria was 
probably the greatest cane region in America. Both are alluvial, 
but there the similarity ends. The difference of about 80 miles of 
latitude between the two so alters the factor of physical environment 
that, notwithstanding the boll weevil, the upper district is still a 
cotton country, with every prospect of regaining or surpassing its 
ante-bellum prosperity — while the lower has been practically driven 
out of cotton growing and forced back into the economic position 
which it occupied sixty years ago, in its dependence upon cane as its 
staple crop. In the American history of the Mexican boll weevil 
there probably is nowhere else presented as striking a demonstration 
of the almost dominant part played by physical conditions in de- 
termining the potential destructive capacity of that insect as in the 
parishes of Rapides, Avoyelles, Pointe Coupee and St. Landry. To 



these might be added East and West Feliciana and East and West 
Baton Rouge, but the first four will answer our purpose. It might 
be asked why not include Wilkinson and Adams counties, in Missis- 
sippi, ah having suffered practically as great damage as the parishes 
mentioned in Louisiana. The most striking difference between the 
Mississippi and Louisiana groups is a difference of economic condi- 
tions and of farming methods and organization, and these we have 
already discussed. These Mississippi counties may have suffered 
equally, but it was through a combination of both economic and 
physical causes. It seems clear to us, on the other hand, that the 
difficulties against which an unsuccessful fight was made in such 
parishes as Avoyelles and Pointe Coupee were not economic at all, 
but were almost wholly physical. With the planters in these parishes 
the boll weevil fight was in truth a struggle with nature herself, and 
nature, not the boll weevil, won. We are not willing to say that with 
a similar plantation system the result would have been materially 
different in Adams and Wilkinson. There may be enough similarity 
of physical conditions between the two groups to have made the end 
the same there as in Avoyelles and Pointe Coupee. But we are 
avoiding every form of speculation in this effort to get at the root 
of the problem, and in the absence of such economic conditions and 
methods as obtained on the Louisiana side, it is manifestly safer not 
to say what might have happened under circumstances which did not 
in fact exist. 

We left the railroad at Alexandria, on the Red River, and went 
by team and automobile through the Bayou De Glaises and 
Atchafalaya River country, some ninety odd miles. We traversed 
the parishes of Rapides, Avoyelles and Pointe Coupee, and struck 
the railroad again at a point within a few miles of the Mississippi. 
On every mile of the trip we realized that we were at last in a semi- 
tropical country. These parishes are in fact along the upper edge of 
tropical Louisiana. Spanish moss covered every tree from top to 
bottom, and reached from the lower limbs to the ground. At a little 
distance the density of its growth gave the timber along banks of 



sloughs and bayous the appearance of gray, unbroken, impenetrable 
walls. Spanish daggers and palmettoes grew to tropical dimensions 
and the woods were filled with evergreen trees and shrubs. Save for 
an occasional stretch of what was locally known as prairie land, the 
landscape everywhere bore the typical swamp country appearance, 
with every tropical feature emphasized and brought into relief. Such 
cotton as we saw was planted on beds as high as could be thrown up 
with an especially adapted "Lone Star" mouldboard, and would 
average probably twice as high as any we had seen elsewhere. 

Before the Civil War, as we have already stated, this was a great 
cane country, and little if any cotton was planted. We passed 
numerous reminders of its ancient glory, in the shape of massive 
brick sugar houses, here and there crumbled into ruin, but occasion- 
ally still sufficient to serve for stables or other uses. The sugar in- 
dustry was destroyed with the destruction of its sugar houses by the 
Federal army. The capital required for its re-establishment was too 
great for an impoverished country, and after 1865 the people turned 
to cotton as the best available substitute crop. It is said that this 
section marks the northern limit of dependable cane production. The 
stubble is never winter killed, and does not require the covering of a 
single furrow for its protection. The boll weevil has now apparently 
placed it below the southern limit of profitable cotton growing as a 
plantation staple crop. We say as a staple crop advisedly, for even 
here cotton is still grown. We rode for miles through a country of 
thrifty French farmers, all of whom were making some cotton. But 
it is becoming more and more a side line, even with them. 

We spent a night with one of the most successful planters in all 
this territory, 2 man of education and means, noted for his energy 
and business capacity. In 1906 he grew 1,500 bales of cotton on 1,800 
acres. In 1907 he grew 1,400 bales. The weevil appeared in the late 
summer of that year. In 1908 he got 198 bales from the same acreage 
as in 1906 and 1907, He did not give up in disgust, but turned at 
once to the ante bellum crop, and will easily occupy the same rank 
as a cane grower that he once held as a cotton planter. This gentle- 
man furnished us the one solitary example which we found in all 
our journey of an absolute failure to grow cotton profitably under the 
plantation system, despite the weevil, where the planter lived on his 



place, made the necessary changes of method, seed, etc., kept his 
labor and maintained his plantation organization intact. In so far 
aS'We could ascertain, nothing was neglected which should have been 
done. But the cause of failure was written on the whole face of the 
landscape. One gentleman remarked to us : "They tell us to clean 
up, burn stalks and destroy all places of hibernation, when there is 
sufficient moss on any tree on the bank of that bayou to winter enough 
weevils to destroy all the cotton in the parish." And they have to 
contend with another thing which we did not discover to exist else- 
where. The rainfall is only eight to ten inches greater there than with 
us, but during the growing season the dew moisture is so heavy as 
frequently to keep the ground damp for days at a time. It is thus 
impossible, even with widened rows, to maintain anything like a dust 
mulch, while the moist, warm earth facilitates the hatching of 
weevils. After all that we had seen of the country, we were not 
surprised at being told that the excellent oranges served at break- 
fast came from our host's own trees. 

The ignorance of people in one section of a State, of conditions 
which confront their neighbors in other counties, was frequently illus- 
trated in our boll weevil conversations m Louisiana and Mississippi, 
In southwest Mississippi we were assured by intelligent men that 
cotton could not be successfully grown anywhere in the State, simply 
because their section had made a failure of it On the other hand, 
in discussing Avoyelles and Rapides parishes with parties in De Soto, 
we were told that the only reason cotton was not profitably grown on 
the lower Red River was that the people there had not made the right 
sort of fight against the weevil. Now, De Soto is in about the same 
latitude as Warren County, and is about 120 miles northwest of 
Avoyelles. It is a Red River parish, on the western edge of the State. 
After suffering a drop from 17,214 bales in 1906 to 6,343 bales in 
1907, it soon regained its boll weevil losses and in 1909 produced 
14,141 bales. From 41,050 bales in 1906, Rapides has steadily fallen 
to 4,685 bales in 1909. Avoyelles fell from 48,003 in 1906 to 8,164 i" 
1909. St. Landry fell from 6^,923 to 17,002, and Pointe Coupee 
from 50,516 to 3,377. The combined yield of these parishes in 1909 
was 7,822 bales less than the single yield of the smallest of the four 



in 1906. The total yield of the group represented a fall from 208492 
bales in 1906 to 33,228 bales in 1909. If we contrast this with the 
recovery in De Soto, just mentioned above, and recognize the fact 
that the people on the lower Red are just as intelligent, just as capable 
and just as determined as those further up stream, it is apparent, 
unless we believe in material miracles, that there must exist some 
definite, tangible, fundamental cause for the disastrous difference 
between the results of their efforts. It was the object of our investi- 
gations to ascertain this cause, as it is of this report to point it out. 
To further indicate the controlling force of climatic conditions and 
physical environment, before leaving this group we may give the 
experience of a gentleman in Pointe Coupee. After turning his entire 
place into cane and corn he persisted in experimenting with cotton on 
a small scale, to test the efficacy of intensive methods. He planted 
ten acres in cotton in 1909, cultivated it by wages, expended $385 
on it, and gathered one bale weighing 490 pounds. 

The object which most interested us at the little station in Pointe 
Coupee parish where we took the train going north, was an oil mill, 
magnificently constructed and equipped. It was a pathetic spectacle, 
"as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." In two years not 
a fire had been kindled under its boilers. The boll weevil had put it 
out of business. The first thing which greeted us as we left the train 
in Madison parish was the hoarse whistle of a gin, and we saw 
more cotton piled upon its yards than we had seen altogether in five 
parishes further south. We were at last back in a cotton country — 
even though one infested with weevils since 1907. We saw no 
magnolias growing wild in these woods ; no pines nor evergreens ; 
and while here and there we noticed a considerable sprinkling of 
Spanish moss, the oranges we ate were imported. 

Madison parish, in our judgment, offers the best field now avail- 
able for the study of cotton growing under weevil conditiou*, from 
the viewpoint of the Delta planter. It has had the weevil since the 
late summer of 1907, and has thus made three crops under its 
handicap. It has a soil almost identical with that of Washington 
county, both in variety and type. Its timber and undergrowth are 
so similar to ours as not to be distinguishable. It has precisely the 



same system of water courses as ours — the same character of bayous, 
creeks and lakes. If anything, on the whole our natural drainage is 
the better. While the growth of Spanish moss is insignificant, as 
compared with that in such parishes as Rapides and Avoyelles, it is 
still many times greater than ours. In fact we have practically no 
moss at all, except upon the banks of a few lakes in one or two 
portions of the county. Cotton is grown under a plantation and 
labor system in every essential respect identical with ours. The only 
difiference of location is that Madison parish lies on the west bank 
of the Mississippi and Washington county on the east. The advan- 
tage of latitude is again with us, the county seat of Madison parish, 
Tallulah, on the V., S. & P. R. R., being about seventy miles south 
of Greenville and a few miles further west. 

The contrast between the results of a level-headed, sane de- 
termination to make cotton in spite of the weevil, and the effects of 
a panic-stricken policy, are not often brought into such striking 
juxtaposition as here. In a ride of some 140 miles through the parish, 
by team and automobile, we saw the two lines of action illustrated 
side by side. We saw abandoned property, with idle gins and empty 
calkins, immediately adjoining places which have made from half to 
three-quarters of a bale to the acre every year since the weevil came. 
We saw crops which this year made 475 pounds of lint to the acre, 
grown under physical conditions which seemed absolutely destructive 
75 to 100 miles further south. We visited this portion of the parish 
twice — once while the cotton was still blooming (with weevils in 
every bloom we examined) and again after the crop was gathered, 
and checked each set of observations against the other. Through 
the courtesy of personal friends who have been planting in the parish 
for a number of years, we were also given access to plantation books, 
permitted to examine accounts of tenants, and furnished with verified 
statements of acreage and yields. 

A brief but definite account of the methods and results on one 
of the plantations operated by our friends will probably answer a 
number of questions which are likely to present themselves to the 



Delta planter. The place in question contains 1,400 acres of cleared 
land. Most of it has been in cultivation many years, while there is 
also considerable new ground, taken in during the past two to five 
years. The property is traversed by a bayou which resembles 
Williams Bayou, near Winterville, and some parts of Deer Creek, 
except that most of the bank undergrowth has been cut out. There is 
also a typical **slough" through part of the place, heavily overgrown 
and with considerable moss along its banks. The land runs back 
from the main bayou to the woods, and the drainage is away from 
the bayou instead of into it. The land is dead flat throughout, and 
the water level is pretty close to the surface. Instead of having to 
use driven wells, and going 18 to 40 feet as we do, the water for 
cabins is supplied by shallow, dug wells, ranging from 12 to 16 feet. 
Practically every acre of the older land is covered with a heavy 
growth of cocoa, and they have to fight every kind of grass and 
weed which we have to contend with here. The soil is a sandy loam 
in places along the bayou, black but not heavy in other parts, and in 
some places a pretty stiff buckshot. The owner, of course, lives on 
the property, but the daily routine of breaking and cultivating, 
handling the labor, etc., is in the hands of a manager. About three- 
fifths of the cotton acreage is worked by renters, who own their own 
team, but who are under just as close daily supervision as the share- 
hands. Before the weevil came the rent paid was a third, but this 
has now been reduced to a fourth. 

Up to a year before the appearance of the weevil, in 1907, about 
1,100 acres out of the 1,400 were planted in cotton. The average 
cotton acreage to the working hand was from six to seven acres. 
A man and his wife renting 14 acres would usually have 12 to 12^ 
acres in cotton. The first step in the direction of preparing for the 
weevil was a reduction of the cotton acreage per hand. This meant 
either reducing the total cotton acreage of the place or building more 
houses and getting in more labor. The former plan was adopted, 
and the reduction was begun in 1906, the year before the weevil 
appeared. This year a total cut of approximately 200 acres was made, 



and 900 acres were put in cotton. In 1907 this was reduced to 800 
acres. In 1908 it was reduced to 600 and in 1909 to 520. Another 
slight cut was made in 1910, and 480 acres put in cotton. After the 
appearance of the weevil they made a change in seed, bender and 
staple cotton being discontinued for a much more prolific variety. 
The acreage and yields are as follows, by years : 
1906 900 acres 672 bales 500 lb. average 373 lbs. per acre ) Bender 



1907 800 " 546 " " " " 341 " " " S Cotton 

1908 600 '■ 556 " . ' '' " 463 

1909 520 ■' 458 " '• " " 440 



1910 480 - 375 " " '• " 390 ' '• '" \ ^^'^^^ 

They had not finished ginning this year's crop, but an extremely 
conservative estimate for the 480 acres is 375 bales, or 390 pounds 
per acre. The crop will in fact easily run as high as 425 pounds 
per acre. 

This is a heavier reduction in cotton acreage than we found any- 
where else where we had access to exact figures. The owner of the 
place explained that he was influenced both by a desire to play 
absolutely safe and by his labor system. As he was renting prac- 
tically everything, it was necessary that his tenants raise not only 
ample corn for their own meal, but he wanted them to have an 
abundance for their stock as well. In reducing their accounts by 
reducing their rations, he had made every one of them raise a few 
hogs, and corn had to be provided for these also. The plan he adopted 
was to reduce the cotton acreage of each family to such an amount as 
could be properly handled under the new conditions — without regard 
to any hard and fast rule. The acreage in fact runs anywhere from 
33^ to 6 to the hand, according to the individual family. He then 
made each one plant such corn as he considered necessary. This 
of course left the total surplus acreage on his hands, to be worked bj/^ 
him for wages. In his case the boll weevil problem has not been that 
of making cotton. Acre for acre his crop has averaged higher than 
before the weevil. His problem has been that of holding down the 
accounts of his tenants and of making profitable use of the land he 
has worked for wages. He solved the first proposition with satis- 



faction and with little difficulty. He issues garden seed to his tenants 
and his manager demands the same attention to the garden that is 
given to the crop. The only absolutely clean, well cultivated planta- 
tion gardens we have ever seen, we found right here. Every tenant 
was furnished a sow and every one raises hogs. Every encourage- 
ment is given them to raise chickens. Nearl}^ every one now has a 
cow, and most of them grow a patch of cane sufficient to make their 
own molasses. In short, their accounts have been held down in 
proportion to their acreage by making them as far as possible self- 
sustaining. This of course was not done in a day. But the amount 
of stufT furnished was abruptly reduced, and the rest was accomp- 
lished gradually. All of us who were planting in the early nineties 
and before know how' little a negro family can live on when the 
general economic situation demands it. Tn this particular case the 
labor vv^as put at once upon the old commissary, meat and bread 
basis — and made to realize that if anything more were wanted it must 
be raised at home. The problem of finding other crops for his surplus 
acreage has thus far been met by planting it in corn, hay, peas, 
broom-corn and rice. Our friend stated that he probably would not 
have made such a heavy reduction in his cotton acreage had he been 
working on shares. In this case the tenant, having no stock to 
provide for, would have been made to plant more cotton and less 
corn. This of course is merely a question of determining just how 
much cotton an individual family can properly cultivate. It must 
be decided by each individual planter for himself, under his own 
knowledge of his labor supply, his already existing allotment of acre- 
age, his particular system and methods, etc. In short, it is no more 
possible to establish iron-clad rules for growing cotton and handling 
labor under boll weevil conditions than it is for handling a plantation 
without boll weevils. 

The object of this report is not to lay down rules and regulations, 
but to show beyond question that cotton is being successfully grown 
despite the weevil, under a great variety of conditions of soil, climate 
and plantation methods. We shall point out in a concluding sum- 
mary the features which seemed everywhere essential to such success. 



We saw in this parish abundant evidences of a striking diversity 
of opinions and practices. We talked to men who did not consider it 
possible to get results out of stiff land under boll weevil conditions^ 
and with others who preferred buckshot to sandy loam. Some laid 
very great stress on the necessity for wide rows, while others seemed 
to pay no attention to the width of theirs at all. We met advocates of 
every variety of short staple seed of which we had ever heard, and 
found at least one man who was still planting long cotton on part 
of his place. But along one line all were agreed, and that was the 
necessity for avoiding a panic, for holding labor, for keeping the 
plantation organization intact, and for prudence and conservatism 
on the part of both planters and business men. And there was also 
one conclusion apparently universal — that after the experience of 
three years, cotton growing under weevil conditions was no longer 
an open question, but had become an accomplished fact. 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 

PHYSICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

In traveling north from the equator nature presents a transition 
from tropical rankness and luxuriance to the frigid barrenness of the 
Arctic Circle. The change from one extreme to the other is ac- 
complished through a series of climatic and physical alterations so 
gradual in character that it is not possible to indicate any precise 
point at which one ceases and another begins. It is a steady course 
of shading-off processes. The most that can be done is to point out 
in general terms the great zones between the indefinite and intangible 
boundaries of which certain forms of plant life flourish and certain 
others cease to exist. In common parlance these have come to be 
described as agricultural "belts," each taking the name of the par- 
ticular staple crop which constitutes the basis of its agricultural 
system. It is almost invariably true that more than one such crop 
is grown in each belt, but it is also true that some one certain staple 
is recognized as the characteristic product of each peculiar combina- 
tion of soil and climate. Corn and cotton grow side by side in the 



Southern States, but there is no confusion of terms in designating 
the American cotton belt. Wheat and corn may be found together 
in a number of Middle and Northwestern States, but there is never- 
theless a "corn belt" and a "wheat belt," each distinct from the other. 

These are mere commonplace matters of fact — but they are of the 
very essence of the problem of determining the physical limits within 
which a given crop may or may not be profitably grown. They can- 
not be ignored in any well reasoned consideration of the problem of 
ascertaining the region or regions in which cotton is or is not a 
dependable crop, whether influenced by contingencies of soil or 
climate or insect pests. There is no mystery about the fact that the 
orange tree flourishes and furnishes both shade and fruit in the city 
of New Orleans, but will not grow at all in Natchez. We accept it 
as something entirely in the natural order of things. We know that 
somewhere between the two cities there is a line above which the 
tree will not bear, and another beyond which it will not even live. 
But we do not know the precise location of either point. We also 
know that somewhere between Baton Rouge and Vicksburg cane 
ceases to be a dependable crop, but we do not know exactly where. 
There is a belt through which such changes occur and in which the 
weather plays so important a part that each year's crop depends on 
each year's seasons. 

After a painstaking inquiry into all available sources of informa- 
tion on the effect of climatic and physical conditions in influencing 
the habits and actions of the weevil, and a careful study of local 
environments through a north and south stretch of some 225 miles 
in the alluvial lands along the Mississippi, and an east and west 
stretch of about 250 miles through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, 
it is our conclusion that the weevil simply adds an additional factor 
to those which have heretofore demanded consideration in determining 
the zones of dependable cotton production. It has always been neces- 
sary to regard the factors of soil and climate, whether the crop in 
question were coffee, tobacco, rice, cane or cotton. And these de- 
termining factors of nature demand still closer consideration in the 



matter of even different varieties of the same crop— as between burley, 
perique and ordinary tobacco, or between Sea Island, alluvial and 
upland cotton. Can the average planter tell off-hand why he cannot 
grow Egyptian cotton here? Nature has already limited the belts 
in which certain strains of cotton may be profitably grown. The 
economic effect of the spread of the Mexican boll weevil is primarily 
that of altering to some extent the natural boundaries of such belts. 
Its secondary effect is that of altering the economic conditions and 
methods under which the cotton producing industry has heretofore 
been conducted. The weevil has never yet, anywhere or at any time, 
rendered impossible the production of cotton. Beyond question, it 
has in some places rendered the growing of certain types of cotton 
apparenty impossible, while in very limited areas it has made un- 
profitable the growing of any strain of cotton which is now available. 
Yet even in these areas some cotton can be and actually is grown. 
The presence of the weevil simply means that to grow it on a large 
scale in these places such a combination of favorable weather condi- 
tions is required that the extra hazard does not justify the extra 
eft'ort. Such areas constitute the undefined zones of transition be- 
tween the dependable and non-dependable cotton belts. The problem 
of boll weevil cotton production, then, is no longer that of determin- 
ing whether cotton can or cannot be grown. It is simplified to one 
of merely determining where it may be grown to the best advantage, 
what varieties of cotton are best adapted to certain conditions of soil 
and climate, and what methods and practices will give the best and 
most profitable results. 

We believe that the southern limit of dependable cotton produc- 
tion under a plantation system, on Mississippi alluvial soil, with any 
variety of seed thus far developed, will be found to lie somewhere 
near a point approximatel}^ on the same east and west line as the 
city of Natchez. We are of the opinion that the northern limit of 
maximiun damage by the weevil will be found to lie somewhere south 
of an east and west line through Vicksburg. Between these two 
points it will be found possible to grow cotton profitably in years 



of favorable weather conditions, but the weatt er will be a controlling 
factor. (As a matter of fact, some of the very best crops made this 
year, in or out of the boll weevil territory, were grown in Franklin 
parish, south of the V. S. & P. R. R.) South of the lower line, we 
do not see how cotton can be safely grown in this territory on an 
extensive scale. North of the upper line we believe that the weevil 
presents no obstacle to profitable cotton growing which may not be 
readily overcome by the use of proper seed and proper methods. 

These conclusions are not mere dogmatic opinions. They are 
based upon a consideration of certain tangible, even obvious, facts. 
The Mexican boll weevil is a tropical insect and flourishes best and is 
most destructive under those conditions which furnish an environ- 
ment most closely resembling that of its natural habitat. Its progress 
has always been most rapid in an easterly direction and slowest as 
it moved north. In studying its course and its actual destructiveness 
we have kept constantly before us the factors of altitude, temperature, 
moisture, and the physical features of the sections in which it has 
operated. These are considerations of nature, wholly beyond human 
control. They are therefore the natural controlling factors. We 
may here disregard economic considerations entirely — as being suffi- 
ciently artificial to be shaped by human agencies. If natural conditions 
make it impossible to grow cotton, then the situation is beyond the 
remedy of man's activities. If, on the other hand, the natural factors 
do not themselves render cotton growing impossible, the economic 
factors may be made to conform to the necessities of the situation 
and success becomes merely a matter of intelligent human effort. 

We have before us the climatological summaries for Louisiana, 
Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. Studying them before and after a 
personal examinaiion of the individual localities in which we are 
interested, it is easy to see how misleading this weather data may 
be, and how liable to misinterpretation. Two to three degrees will 
cover the difference of average temperature, for example, between 
Avoyelles and Madison Parishes. Two to three inches will cover the 
diflference of rainfall. The points of observation in the two parishe 



are probably ninety miles apart. These recorded differences of 
weather, in favor of the more northerly parish, do not in themselves 
account for the very great difference of relative weevil damag-e be- 
tween the two places. The reai difference is a physical one, ex- 
pressed in the differences, of vegetation, dew moisture, soil conditions, 
etc., which are the accumulated product of centuries of really insig- 
nificant annual differences of temperature and rainfall. The same 
temperature in any given winter may have very different relative 
effects on the weevil in the two parishes. Winter survivals of weevils 
are influenced by the character of hibernating quarters afforded by 
given localities, as well as by actual temperature itself. The number 
of weevils surviving the winter constitutes a factor of the utmost 
importance in its effect upon the crop. With these considerations 
in mind, the great difference between the ravages of the weevil in 
the two parishes of Avoyelles and Madison is readily understood when 
one has examined the physical conditions of the two — though it is not 
at all explained by the bare figures of a weather report. While the 
factor of temperature is one of the most important in the entire 
boll weevil problem, we wish to emphasize the fact that the effect of 
a given temperature on the weevil in both winter and summer is 
determined by physical considerations. We have in Washington 
county the advantage of probably one degree of temperature over 
the general Madison parish territory. The nearest point to that 
parish for which the figures of rainfall are available is Vicksburg, 
just across the river. The annual precipitation there is 53.74 inches, 
as against only 47.75 inches at Greenville, a difference of practically 
six inches in favor of this territory. But just as such figures do not 
disclose the real difference between Avoyelles and Madison parishes 
so they do not tell the whole story as between Madison parish and 
Washington county. After a careful study of every physical factor 
in the large area covered by our investigations, we are satisfied that 
as regards such physical considerations this county is as favorably 
situated as any of which we have any knowledge. This statement 
may of course be subject to modification by conditions in individual 



localities, but we believe it to be sound as applied to this county and 
section as a whole. As between a plantation which is thoroughly 
drained, free of sloughs, where the cultivated land lies in a large 
open block, where the ditch banks and roads are kept clean, where 
tongues of timber do not project into the fields, and one in which 
contrary conditions exist, there is of course a great advantage with 
the former place. But these physical disadvantages may usually be 
remedied, and it will certainly pay to remove them as far as possible. 
The only sections we saw which possess any apparent advantage 
over ours are certain areas of prairie land in Texas. But upon in- 
vestigation these are usually found to be areas of deficient rainfall. 

Another factor to be considered is that of soil. We found a great 
variety of opinion on this point. Some planters insisted that cotton 
could not be grown on buckshot land, while others claimed that there 
was no difference between it and lighter soil, as far as boll weevil con- 
ditions are concerned. Out of this general confusion of views we 
extracted the conclusion that this is a matter of local condition- 
There is certainly an advantage of "quick" over "slow" land, and 
every planter knows the cuts on his property on which cotton grows 
oflf most slowly in the spring. 

We found but one opinion as to the matter of drainage. It was 
everywhere agreed that drainage as nearly perfect as possible is an 
absolute necessity. But we do not need the boll weevil to tell us this. 

The matter of the proper width of rows comes also under the 
head of the physical considerations which affect the yield under boll 
weevil conditions. We found rows all the way from three feet apart in 
portions of Texas to five and a half, and even six, feet in Madison 
parish, Louisiana. The consideration governing the width is that 
of the necessity of giving the cotton such space as will give a 
maximum amount of sun to the roots of the stalks, with a view to 
forcing the growth as much as possible — at the same time drying out 
the middles so as to give the quickest possible opportunity for cul- 
tivating after a rain. It is manifest that the width necessary to 
accomplish these ends will depend on the nature of the soil and the 



character of growth of the particular variety of cotton planted. On 
a poor, light soil, such as the chalk-colored prairie land of parts of 
Texas, where cotton grows to a height of about three feet, rows only 
three feet apart are amply sufficient. On the alluvial lands of Madi- 
son parish a much wider row is necessary. What impressed us as 
being the safest rule which we observed anywhere was that of 
spacing the rows so as to prevent the cotton from doing more than 
barely locking in the middles. This of course varies according to soil 
and cotton. 

ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS. 

In submitting our observations on the economic aspects of the 
boll weevH problem, we are prompted more by a desire to make this 
report as complete as possible than by any such idea as that of telling 
planters, bankers or factors how to handle their respective lines of 
business. But for the fact that vv^e have been asked a number of 
questions which fall proptily under the above caption, we would have 
nothing whatf^ver to sav- along this line. 

After what we have already written, it seems unnecessary to add 
anything on the subject of the danger of business and labor panics. 
We did not talk to a planter who failed to dwell on the fact that 
his damage was in proportion to his ability to hold and take care of 
his labor pending such readjustment as it was necessary for him 
to make. And his success or failure in this effort, where he was not 
financially independent, depended on the degree of co-operation be- 
tween himself and his banker or factor. We also talked to a few 
business men who frankly admitted that they themselves shared the 
responsibility for having killed the goose that was laying the golden 
egg. In the light of the recovery which everywhere followed the 
panic (always excepting of course the territory below the line of 
boll weevil cotton production), practically every business man with 
whom we talked agreed that a different policy on the appearance 
of the weevil would in all probability have prevented even such dis- 
tress as at first occurred. 



Of one thing we may assure ourselves ; while we are unquestion- 
ably above the line of maximum boll weevil damage, we are well 
within the region of panics. We cannot make cotton without labor, 
and we cannot hold our labor if we pursue the suicidal policy of 
not only becoming frightened ourselves, but of showing our fright 
to our negroes. We may depend upon it that our conduct, whatever 
it may be, will be reflected in that of our labor. And the labor can- 
not live unless it is fed. If we do as a good many planters in 
Louisiana did — throw up our hands and tell our negroes that we can 
no longer take care of them, it will not take them as long to find other 
homes as it will take us to find other labor. The boll weevil cannot 
put this country out of business, but we can easily be bankrupted 
by our own folly. 

This does not mean that the approaching situation does not re- 
quire either prudence or conservatism. On the contrary, it demands a 
high degree of each. It is notorious that under the influence of high 
prices there is always more or less of wildcat business done in every 
cotton country. Both negroes and white men are given lines of 
credit to which they are not entitled by any consideration of moral 
responsibility or business capacity. The boll weevil will eliminate 
this class of business. Unquestionably it should also put 
a stop to ill considered expansions in planting and all other 
lines of business. It will be necessary for the planter to 
furnish his labor on a basis of "living" rations alone, — and let the 
negro learn to supplement this with what may be grown at home. 
The financial demands of the country upon the town should be 
reduced to the basis of expenditures absolutely required for the con- 
tinued production of the crop upon which the welfare of the com- 
munity as a whole depends. The assistance of the town to the 
countr}'^ should be rendered in such measure as may be necessary to 
conserve interests which should be recognized as mutual. This is 
a cotton country, and the cotton growing industry is absolutely 
the basis of the business life of the community. Its destruction 
inevitably involves the paralysis of every other form of enterprise. Its 
maintenance is therefore a matter of community concern. 



In saying that this is a cotton country, we are not unmindful of 
the suggestions as to diversification which constitute an important 
feature of the advice usually given the cotton planter about to be 
attacked by the weevil. But we had impressed upon us a hundred 
times the danger of carrying the diversification idea too far in a 
staple crop country. The men whom we found everywhere to be 
most successful were those who for a mainstay had stuck to the 
crop which they were accustomed to grow. We have not one word 
to say against a carefully considered plan of diversified crops. But 
we believe the extent to which it is undertaken should be governed 
by the amount of surplus land which the planter has left on his 
hands as a result of reducing his cotton acreage to such proportions 
as can be properly handled by the labor at his command, and by the 
amount of land he may have which for any reason may be unsuited 
to cotton under boll weevil conditions. 

As to the methods of cultivation required under the new order 
of things, it is unnecessary for us to say anything here. A letter 
addressed to Dr. S. A. Knapp, Department of Agriculture, Wash- 
ington, will bring bulletins containing all the information desired 
along this line. And we may add here that the most successful 
boll weevil planters we met were the most outspoken in their endorse- 
ment of Dr. Knapp's assistance and advice. He has been a prop 
to many communities in allaying labor and business panics, and his 
efforts deserve the highest praise. We found some diversity of 
opinion as to the efficacy of stalk destruction as a means of dimin- 
ishing the number of weevils surviving the winter, but many planters 
unhesitatingly advocated it. There was practical unanimity as to 
the necessity of picking up and burning mfested squares. 

As to the matter of the best variety of cotton to plant we found 
numberless opinions. In Texas we heard Triumph endorsed on every 
hand. In Louisiana, on the alluvial lands of both the Red and Missis- 
sippi rivers, we found a marked preference for a cotton with smaller 
leaves and less foliage. Here the choice lay between such small 
boll varieties as King, Simpkins, Sugar Loaf, etc. We found some 



staple cotton still beings grown in one or two Texas counties which 
are in our latitude, and in one place in Louisiana to the south of 
us. We may be far enough north to grow staples successfully, but 
that remains to be proved. Personally, for the first year or so, until 
we have had opportunity to test the matter, we think the safer 
policy would be to plant a shorter, more prolific and quicker cotton 
than any of the staples of which we now have any knowledge. 

A moment's reflection by those who have been interested in grow- 
ing cotton for the past fifteen to twenty years, either as planters, 
bankers or factors, should dissipate the bugaboo aspects of the boll 
weevil problem. Except in the few places in Louisiana and Mississippi 
where the cotton growing industry has been actually destroyed, — 
places from whose experience we have absolutely nothing to fear, — 
the weevil has nowhere created a condition anything like as bad as 
some which all of us have successfully weathered in the past. From 
a personal inspection of actual figures of cotton production, and 
from a careful personal examination of cotton fields, we are prepared 
to say that every well-managed plantation which we visited has 
an average annual cotton production, under boll weevil conditions, 
ranging from 240 to 400 pounds of lint per acre. The yield varied 
with conditions entirely apart from boll weevil considerations, — such 
for example as labor, soil, drainage, weather, etc. In every instance 
it was more intiuenced by individual methods of management than by 
anything else. We need only recall the figures taken from the 
books of a Madison parish planter to illustrate the possibilities under 
propel management and close supervision, on a thoroughly organized 
plantation. The yield here has averaged more than 425 pounds of 
lint to the acre during the three boll weevil years of 1908, 1909 and 
1910. How many Delta planters can equal this during these same 
three years? 

It will of course be said at once that this was accomplished 
by planting a shorter cotton than any Delta planter wants to adopt. 
This iy true, but granting that we find it impossible to grow staples 
here, common sense should furnish its own reply to such a proposi- 



tion. This cotton has sold at prices rang^ing from 12 to 15 cents 
for the past two years. If we reduce the yield to 325 pounds of lint, 
or even to 300 pounds, and reduce the price to ten cents, we still have 
a better state of affairs than all of us experienced when staple cotton 
was selling for six or seven cents a pound. How many planters 
here would throw up their hands, abandon their labor and land and 
quit the business, if they knew with absolute certainty that within 
two years staple cotton would be back to the same level of prices 
which obtained from 1894 to 1898? The number could be counted on 
the fingers of one hand. And yet, if we only stick to the facts and 
eliminate the single factor of panic, we cannot by any amount of 
human ingenuity twist as disastrous a set of conditions out of the 
boll weevil proposition as would be presented by such a decline 
in price. We would in the latter case simply cut the garment ac- 
cording to the cloth, — and that is the sum and substance of the 
economic readjustment rendered necessary by the weevil. It is 
the beginning and the end of the solution of the whole boll weevil 
problem. Its accomplishment will be rendered difficult or easy ac- 
cording to whether we allow ourselves to be driven into the fight 
in a state of demoralization and disorder, or accept the situation in 
time, meet it as we would any other business problem, and work it 
out from the beginning with prudence, energy and common sense. 

We wish to make public acknowledgement of our obligation to 
the many gentlemen who aided us on our trip, and to express our 
genuine appreciation of the unfailing courtesy and generous spirit 
of helpfulness which characterized their discussions with us. We 
wish also to thank Mr. Bolton Smith, of Memphis, and Dr. S. A. 
Knapp, of Washington, for letters of introduction which very greatly 
facilitated our investigations. 

ALFRED H. STONE. 
JULIAN H. FORT. 

Dunleith Plantations. Dunleith. Washington County. Miss., 
December 15, 1910. 



3477-65 
Lot ]fi 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



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